In music, a notehead is the part of a

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the staff indicates the pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate duration. Noteheads may be the same shape but colored completely black or white, indicating the

note value In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration (music), duration of a note (music), note, using the texture or shape of the ''notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem (music), stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags ...

(i.e., rhythmic duration). In a

whole note A whole note (American) or semibreve (British) in musical notation is a single note equivalent to or lasting as long as two half notes or four quarter notes. Description The whole note or semibreve has a note head in the shape of a hollow ov ...

, the notehead, shaped differently than shorter notes, is the only component of the note. Shorter note values attach a

stem Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

to the notehead, and possibly beams or flags. The longer

double whole note In music, a double whole note (American), breve (British) or double note lasts two times as long as a whole note (or ''semibreve''). It is the second-longest note value still in use in modern music notation. The next longest notated note is the ...

can be written with vertical lines surrounding it, two attached noteheads, or a rectangular notehead.Gerou, Tom & Lusk, Linda
''Essential Dictionary of Music Notation''.
Alfred Music, 1996, p. 210. An "x" shaped notehead may be used to indicate percussion, percussive effects (

ghost note In music, notably in jazz, a ghost note (or a dead, muted, silenced or false note) is a musical note with a rhythmic value, but no discernible pitch when played. In musical notation, this is represented by an "X" for a note head instead of ...

s), or speaking. A square, diamond, or box shaped notehead may be used to indicate a

natural Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part ...

or artificial harmonic. A small notehead can be used to indicate a

grace note A grace note is a kind of music notation denoting several kinds of musical ornament (music), ornaments. It is usually printed smaller to indicate that it is melodically and harmonically nonessential. When occurring by itself, a single grace no ...

History

Noteheads ultimately derive from the

neume A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and some Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff (music), staff notation. The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the gener ...

s used to notate

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek language, Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed main ...

. The punctum, seen at right, is the simplest of the shapes and most clearly anticipates the modern notehead. When placed on a

clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical staff. Placing a clef on a staff assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines or four spaces, whic ...

, the position of a notehead indicates the relative pitch of a note. The development of different colors of noteheads, and the use of it to indicate rhythmic values, was the use of white

mensural notation Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for polyphony, polyphonic European vocal music from the late 13th century until the early 17th century. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measur ...

, adopted around 1450. Franco of Cologne, ancient composer and music theorist, codified a system of rhythm notation. He explained this system in his work, ''Ars Cantus Mensurabilis'' (“The Art of Measurable Music”), circa 1280. In this system, the relative duration of notes was indicated by the note shapes. The noteheads were rectangles, squares, or diamonds depending on the note length. This system was expanded during the

Ars Nova ''Ars nova'' ()Fallows, David. (2001). "Ars nova". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. refers to a musical style which flourished in the Kingdom of ...

period. Shortly before the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

, scribes began to write the notes of the Franconian and Ars Nova style with open noteheads. During the Renaissance, composers added shorter note durations that used filled-in noteheads. Near the end of the 16th century, the square or diamond-shaped notes changed to the round noteheads that are used today.Burkholder, J.P., Grout, D.J., & Palisca, C.V. (2006). A history of western music 7th ed.. New York, NY: W.W Norton & Company.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:notehead Musical notation

History

See also

References